The Catalog is the starting point for easy work with your photo collection. It is available in the Navigator in every module of Zoner Photo Studio. When a folder is added to the Catalog, Zoner starts automatically indexing thumbnails and information for the pictures in that folder. This is done in the background while you work. While Zoner is indexing, it shows a blue gear wheel in the Navigator’s Catalog section. To manage indexing, click that wheel and then use the items in the menu that appears.
- Update Catalog – updates a Catalog folder based on the rules you’ve set under Preferences | Catalog. The folder is first cataloged and then Catalog previews are automatically preloaded for it. Use the Full Performance item in the notification section (the bell icon) to let cataloging use up 100% of your PC’s power. However, this really does mean 100%, and so no other work can be done on a computer during preloading when Full Performance is active. To interrupt preloading, use Postpone, and to start it back up again after postponing, use Continue Preloading. If you don’t continue preloading manually, it is continued automatically on the day after it is postponed.
- Find missing files – this feature quickly catalogs files for searching. Unlike the Catalog Update, it does not generate thumbnails, and it is faster.
- Show Folders’ File Counts – to turn on this option, use the right-click menu for the “Catalog” item. When this option is turned on, the number of indexed files, including those in subfolders, is shown for folders that are in the Catalog. This number may not match the item count shown in the Manager, because that count may be affected by functions such as display filtering, RAW+JPEG grouping, etc.
Click the 
icon to the right of a folder’s name to turn on the Preload Previews option.
Use the 
icon to open the Preview Preloading Settings.
Four informational flags may appear for individual folders added to the Catalog: 
, 
, 
, 
. More about the meaning of these symptoms can be found in the Informational Flags article.
Preview Preloading Settings
Use this window to set one of the different preloading modes for picture and video previews. Four modes are available for pictures – Do Not Preload, Quick Preview (with Low Resolution), 1:1 Quick Preview for Undeveloped, and 1:1 Quick Preview for All.
Fast Preview (with low resolution) indicates a preview JPEG with a resolution of 2048 pixels.
1:1 Fast Previews are JPEG previews with resolution corresponding to RAW. 1:1 Fast Previews for Undeveloped are only loaded for RAWs that have not yet seen any adjustments in the Develop module. 1:1 Fast Previews for All are loaded even for photos that have seen adjustments in the Develop module.
Three modes are available for videos – Do Not Preload, Preload Interactive Thumbnails, and Preload Smart Video Previews.
The term Interactive Thumbnails here means video thumbnails that change as you interact with them using the mouse. For every video, ZPS creates 360 stills spaced evenly through the video that it displays if you run the mouse over the video’s thumbnail horizontally.
The term Smart Video Preview here means a preloaded video preview; this preview makes a file load faster into projects in the Video module.
If the Including subfolders option is not turned on, this preview option will only affect the given folder itself. Subfolders contained in a parent folder are preloaded based on default settings or their individual settings.
For easier work with your online files on OneDrive, you can enable the downloading of these files onto your disk. Hover over the icon to see the time and date when previews were last loaded. The stopwatch icon means that loading is still only planned or in progress.
Because the Catalog stores thumbnails and metadata for your pictures, it’s the foundation for fast browsing when you’re in the Navigator’s Catalog section, and it is also the foundation for Quick Search.
Catalog Sections
The Catalog offers these sections:
-
- Folder View – a list of the folders that you’ve added to the Catalog. To work with your cataloged folder settings, visit Preferences | Catalog.
- Calendar View – here photos are sorted into virtual folders by the dates when they were taken.
- Keyword View – in this view, photos are sorted by keyword. Click and drag a keyword here to move it among categories. To turn a keyword into a category, drag at least one other keyword onto it. Click a keyword to view all of the pictures with that keyword. To assign keywords, drag and drop them onto your pictures. You can also tag pictures by dragging and dropping those pictures onto the keywords instead.
- Location View – in this view, photos with GPS data are sorted by the text description of their location into a four-level tree based on the following data: Country, State/Province, City, Place.
Quick Search
Press [Ctrl+F] or click the search box above the Navigator to activate Quick Search. This function is only available for files that have been added to the Catalog.
The Quick Search pane contains several controls:
-
- Text – enter the text to find here. ZPS starts searching immediately once you begin typing. You can tell the program to Search in all text related to pictures, or in certain kinds only—e.g. keywords, the path to the file, its description or its location.
- Format – use this to set what file formats the files found by Quick Search should have: RAW, JPG, Video, and/or Other.
- Rating — use these controls for rating-based searches, in any of three modes: Equal To, Less Than, and Greater Than.
- Label — use this to search based on one or more of the various colored Labels that you can give to photos.
- GPS — use this to find pictures by GPS coordinates. Use the buttons here to get coordinates from the selected picture, a different picture file, or a map. After setting the coordinates, set how far away from them Zoner should look, using the Radius.
- Including subfolders – use this option (available in the Browser only) to find pictures in both the current folder and its subfolders.
Click the button at the end of each row of Quick Search controls to return that row to factory settings. Combine multiple conditions to see only files that meet all of those conditions.
To add a folder to the Catalog, use the Add Folder command within Preferences | Catalog, or use Add Folder to Catalog in the right-click menu for a folder, e.g. This PC, or drag and drop the folder onto Folders in the Catalog.
Remove Folder from Catalog
To remove a folder from the Catalog, use Remove Folder from Catalog in the Catalog’s right-click menu or the Remove Folder option under Preferences | Catalog.
More Information
[Infographic] How to Tag Your Photos With Keywords
A well-organized collection—the way to find any photo fast, any time